"It was the first thing came into my head," said Gallagher, "and I was that flustered I said it without thinking."

"Well, how did he take it?"

"He was mighty pleased, so he was. 'Take me to her,' he said. 'Take me to see her this minute,' Well, to be sure I couldn't do that."

"You could not," said Dr. O'Grady. "Could he, Major?"

"I don't see why not. He might have hired some girl for half an hour."

"No decent girl would do it," said Gallagher, "and anyway I wouldn't have had the time, for he had me in the motor again before I knew where he was and 'Show me the way to the house,' says he. 'You can't see her at the present time,' says I, 'though you may later,' 'And why not?' says he. 'The reason why you can't,' says I, 'is a delicate matter,' 'Oh!' says he. 'That's the way of it, is it? I'm glad to hear of it. The more of the stock of the old General there are in the world the better.' Well, when I seen him so pleased as all that, I thought it would be no harm to please him more. 'It's twins,' I said, 'and what's more the both of them is boys,' 'Take me to see the father,' says he. 'I'll be able to see him anyway. I'd like to shake him by the hand.'"

"Has he seen young Kerrigan?" said Dr. O'Grady.

"He has not; but he won't rest easy till he does. I wanted to run round and tell young Kerrigan the way things are, so as he'd be ready when the gentleman came. But Doyle said it would be better for me to tell you what had happened before worse came of it."

"Doyle was perfectly right Kerrigan would stand over your story all right as long as he could, but in the end he'd have had to produce the twins. That's the awkward part. If you hadn't said twins we might have managed. But there isn't a pair in the town."

"Couldn't you telegraph to Dublin?" said the Major. "For a man of your resource, O'Grady, mere twins ought not to prove a hopeless obstacle. I should think that one of the hospitals where they go in for that kind of thing would be quite glad to let you have a brace of babies in or about the same age."

O'Grady knew that this suggestion was not meant to be helpful. The Major had an objectionable habit of indulging in heavy sarcasm. He turned on him sharply.

"You'd better go home, Major. When you try to be facetious you altogether cease to be useful. You know perfectly well that there's no use talking about importing babies. What would we do with them afterwards? You couldn't expect young Kerrigan to keep them."

"I offered to go home some time ago," said the Major, "and you wouldn't let me. Now that I've heard about young Kerrigan's twins I mean to stop where I am and see what happens."

"Very well, Major. Just as you like. As long as you don't upset Billing by rolling up any of those heavy jokes of yours against him I don't mind. Here we are. I expect Doyle has Billing in the bar trying to pacify him with whisky. You'd better stay outside, Thady."

"I'd be glad of a drop then," said Gallagher wistfully. "After all the talking I did this afternoon——"

"Oh, go in if you like," said Dr. O'Grady. "Probably the safest thing for you to do is to get drunk. Here's Billing crossing the street He's just come out of Kerrigan's shop. Why on earth Doyle couldn't have kept him in play till I came.... He's sure to have found out now that young Kerrigan isn't married. This will make my explanation far more difficult than it need have been."

"It will make it impossible, I should imagine," said the Major.

Mr. Billing, his hands in his coat pockets and a large cigar between his teeth, came jauntily across the street. Dr. O'Grady greeted him.

"Good-evening, Mr. Billing," he said. "I hope you've had a pleasant and satisfactory afternoon."

Sergeant Colgan and Constable Moriarty came out of the barrack together. They joined the group opposite the hotel. Constable Moriarty was grinning broadly. He had evidently heard some version of the story about young Kerrigan's twins.

"I am sorry to find," said the doctor, "that Thady Gallagher made a mistake, and a bad one, this afternoon."

"I reckon," said Mr. Billing, "that he kind of wandered from the path of truth."

"Young Kerrigan isn't married," said the doctor.

"The twins," said Mr. Billing, "were an effort of imagination. I am a man of imagination myself, so I'm not complaining any."

"Being a newspaper editor you have to be, of course," said Dr. O'Grady. "But Gallagher's story wasn't pure imagination. It was rather what I'd call prophetic. The fact is young Kerrigan is going to be married. Gallagher only anticipated things a bit. I daresay he thought the ceremony had really taken place. He didn't mean to deceive you in any way. Did you, Thady?"

He looked round as he spoke. He wanted Gallagher to confirm what he said.

"He's within," said Constable Moriarty, grinning, "and I wouldn't say but he's having a drink. Anyway, here's Mr. Doyle."

Doyle, having supplied Gallagher with a bottle of porter, came out of the hotel. He was naturally anxious to hear Dr. O'Grady's explanation.

"The twins," said Mr. Billing, "were considerable previous."

"Not so much as you might think," said Dr. O'Grady. "Once people get married, you know, Mr. Billing, it often happens—generally in fact—not necessarily twins, but more or less that kind of thing. I can quite understand Thady making the mistake. And the girl young Kerrigan's going to marry really is a grandniece of the General's. Thady was quite right there."

"I'd like to see her," said Mr. Billing. "I'd like to take a photograph of her. The Bolivian public will be interested in a photograph of General John Regan's grandniece."

"Run and get your camera then," said Dr. O'Grady. "I'll have her ready for you by the time you're back."

Mr. Billing, looking very well satisfied and quite without suspicion, went into the hotel.

"Doyle," said Dr. O'Grady, "fetch Mary Ellen as quick as you can."

"Is it Mary Ellen?"

"It is. Get her at once, and don't argue."

"But sure Mary Ellen's not the grandniece of any General."

"She's the only grandniece we can possibly get on such short notice," said Dr. O'Grady.

"I don't know," said Sergeant Colgan, "will Mr. Gallagher be too well pleased. Mary Ellen's a cousin of his own."

"Thady will have to put up with a little inconvenience," said Dr. O'Grady. "He got us all into this mess, so he can't complain."

"I beg your pardon, doctor," said Constable Moriarty, who had stopped grinning and looked truculent, "but I'll not have it put out that Mary Ellen's going to marry young Kerrigan. He's a boy she never looked at, nor wouldn't."

"Shut up, Moriarty," said Dr. O'Grady. "If you won't call her, Doyle, I must do it myself. Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen, come here!"

"What's the use of calling Mary Ellen?" said Doyle. "The girl knows well enough she's not the niece nor the grandniece of any General. As soon as ever you face her with the American gentleman she'll be saying something, be the same more or less, that'll let him know the way things are with her."

"If I know anything of Mary Ellen," said Dr. O'Grady, "she'll not say a word more than she need on any subject. I never could drag anything beyond 'I did,' or 'I did not,' or 'I might,' out of her no matter how hard I tried, Mary Ellen! Mary Ellen! Ah! here she is."

Mary Ellen came slowly through the door of the hotel. She smiled when she saw Dr. O'Grady, smiled again and then blushed when her eyes lit on Constable Moriarty. Her face and hands were a little dirtier than they had been earlier in the day, but she had added a small, crumpled, white cap to the apron which she put on in honour of Mr. Billing. The sight of her roused all Constable Moriarty's spirit.

"I'll not have it done, doctor," he said, "so there it is for you plain and straight. I'll not stand by and see the character of a decent girl——"

"Whisht, can't you," said Mary Ellen.

"Sergeant," said Dr. O'Grady, "this isn't a matter in which the police have any business to interfere. No one is committing a crime of any sort. You'd far better send Moriarty back to the barrack before he makes a worse fool of himself than he has already."

"Get along home out of that, Moriarty," said the sergeant. "Do you want me to have to report you to the District Inspector for neglect of duty?"

The threat was a terrific one. Moriarty quailed before it. He did not actually go back to the barrack; but he retired to the background and did no more than look reproachfully at Mary Ellen whenever he thought she was looking his way.

"It's a great pity," said Dr. O'Grady, "that we haven't time to wash her face. I might do something, even without soap and water, if I had a pocket-handkerchief. Major, just lend me—— Oh hang it! I can't. Here comes Billing with his camera. Pull yourself together now, Mary Ellen, and try to look as if you were proud of your distinguished relative. It isn't every girl of your age who has a General for a great uncle."

Mr. Billing approached. The corners of his lips were twitching in a curious way. Dr. O'Grady looked at him suspiciously. A casual observer might have supposed that Mr. Billing was trying hard not to smile.

"This," said Dr. O'Grady, pointing to Mary Ellen, "is the grandniece, the only surviving relative, of General John Regan."

"You surprise me," said Mr. Billing. "When I recollect that she cooked chops for my luncheon to-day I'm amazed."

"The General wouldn't have thought a bit the worse of her for that," said Dr. O'Grady. "A true democrat, the General, if ever there was one. I daresay he often cooked chops himself, when campaigning I mean, and was jolly glad to get chops to cook."

"So you," said Mr. Billing, addressing Mary Ellen, "are the grandniece of the great General?"

"I might be," she said.

"And I am to have the privilege—gentlemen, please stand a little aside. I wish to——"

Mr. Billing set up his camera and put his head under the black cloth. Constable Moriarty sidled up to Major Kent. Nothing had been said about Mary Ellen's marriage with young Kerrigan. He felt that he had been unnecessarily alarmed.

"I beg your pardon, Major," he said, "but maybe if you asked the gentleman he'd give me a copy of the photo when it's took."

"Talk to the doctor about that," said the Major. "He's managing this show. I've nothing to do with it."

"I'd be backward about asking the doctor," said Moriarty, "on account of what passed between us a minute ago when I thought he was wanting to take away the girl's character."

Mr. Billing completed his arrangements and stood beside his camera ready to release the shutter.

"You're quite sure," said Dr. O'Grady, "that you wouldn't care to have her face washed?"

"Certain," said Mr. Billing. "The General was a genuine democrat if ever there was one. He wouldn't have thought a bit the worse of her for having a dirty face."

Dr. O'Grady started slightly and then looked questioningly at Mr. Billing. It struck him that there was something suspicious about this repetition of his words. He glanced at the Major, at Doyle, and then at the two policemen. They all seemed completely absorbed in the taking of the photograph. Mr. Billing's last remark had not struck them as in any way odd.

The shutter clicked. One of Mary Ellen's sweetest smiles was secured on the sensitive plate. Constable Moriarty, greatly daring, asked Mr. Billing for a print of the photograph. Mr. Billing promised him a copy of the life of General John Regan when it appeared. He said that there would be a full page reproduction of Mary Ellen's portrait in the second volume.

"The Major and I must be off," said Dr. O'Grady, "but if I may call on you to-morrow morning, Mr. Billing, I should like to make arrangements about the public meeting. We want to have you at it."

"The meeting?" said Doyle.

"The meeting about the statue," said Dr. O'Grady. "By the way, Doyle, you might call on Father McCormack this evening." He spoke with a glance at Mr. Billing which he hoped that Doyle would interpret correctly. "You'd better remind him that he's to take the chair. He promised a week ago, but he may have forgotten. That's the worst of these good-natured men," he added, speaking directly to Mr. Billing. "They promise anything, and then it's ten to one they forget all about it."

"I'm not quite sure," said Mr. Billing, "that my arrangements will allow me——"

"Oh, they will if you squeeze them a bit. Arrangements are extraordinary pliable things if you handle them firmly, and we'd like to have you. A speech from you about the General would be most interesting. It would stimulate the whole population. Wouldn't it, Major?"

"I'd like to hear it," said the Major.

"Good-bye then, for the present," said Dr. O'Grady. "Come along, Major. By the way, Doyle, if Thady takes a drop too much to drink, and he may, don't let him start boring Mr. Billing about Home Rule."

He took Major Kent by the arm and walked off. Until they passed the end of the street and were well out on the lonely road which led to the Major's house, neither of them spoke. Then the Major broke the silence.

"I hope, O'Grady, that you're satisfied with that performance."

"To tell you the truth, Major, I'm not."

"I'm surprised to hear that," said the Major. "You've told the most outrageous lies I ever heard. You've—-"

"I gave the only possible explanation of a rather difficult situation."

"You've made a laughing stock of a respectable girl."

"I've given Mary Ellen a great uncle that she ought to be proud to own. That's not what's bothering me."

"What is, then?"

"That American," said the doctor. "I don't at all like the way he's going on. He's not by any means a fool——"

"He must be or he wouldn't have swallowed all those lies you told him in the way he did. How could Mary Ellen possibly be———?"

"That's just it," said Dr. O'Grady. "He swallowed what I said far too easily. The situation, owing to Thady Gallagher's want of presence of mind, was complex, desperately complex. I got out of it as well as any man could, but I don't deny that the explanation I gave—particularly that part about Mary Ellen being engaged to young Kerrigan, was a bit strained. I expected the American would have shied. But he didn't. He swallowed it whole without so much as a choke. Now I don't think that was quite natural. The fact is, Major, I'm uneasy about Billing. It struck me that there was something rather odd in the way he repeated my words about the General being a genuine democrat. He gave me the impression that he was—well, trying to make fools of us."

"You were certainly trying to make a fool of him."

"I don't quite understand his game," said Dr. O'Grady, "if he has a game. I may be wronging him. He may be simply an idiot, a well-meaning idiot with a craze for statues."

"He must be," said the Major. "Nothing else would account for——"

"I doubt it," said Dr. O'Grady. "He doesn't look that kind of man. However, there's no use talking any more about it to-night. I'll be in a better position to judge when I've found out all there is to know about this General of his. I'll write for the books I've mentioned, and I'll write to a man I know in the National Library. If there's anything known about the General on this side of the Atlantic he'll ferret it out for me."

Dr. O'Grady stopped speaking. The Major supposed that he had stopped thinking about Mr. Billing's curious conduct. The doctor did indeed intend to stop thinking about it. But it is difficult to bridle thought. After walking half a mile in silence Dr. O'Grady spoke again, and his words showed that his mind was still working on the same problem.

"Americans have far too good an opinion of themselves," he said. "Billing may possibly think he's playing some kind of trick on us. He may be laughing at us in some way we don't quite understand."

"I don't know whether he's laughing or not," said the Major, "but everybody else will be very soon if you go on as you're going."



CHAPTER VI

It is very difficult to do anything of importance to the community without holding a public meeting about it. In Ireland people have got so accustomed to oratory and the resolutions which are the immediate excuse for oratory, that public meetings are absolutely necessary preliminaries to any enterprise. This is the case in all four provinces, which is one of the things which goes to show that the Irish are really a single people and not two or three different peoples, as some writers assert. The hard-headed, commercially-minded Ulsterman is just as fond of public meetings as the Connacht Celt. He would hold them, with drums and full dress speechifying, even if he were organising a secret society and arranging for a rebellion. He is perfectly right. Without a public meeting it would be impossible to enrol any large number of members for a society.

Dr. O'Grady, having lived all his life in Ireland, and being on most intimate terms with his neighbours, understood this law. He also understood that in order to make a success of a public meeting in Connacht and therefore to further the enterprise on hand, it is necessary that the parish priest should take the chair and advisable that a Member of Parliament should propose the first resolution.

He began by sending Doyle to Father McCormack. Doyle, foreseeing a possible profit for himself, did his best to persuade Father McCormack to take the chair. Father McCormack, who was a fat man and therefore good-natured, did not want to refuse Doyle. But Father McCormack was not a free agent. Behind him, somewhere, was a bishop, reputed to be austere, certainly domineering. Father McCormack was very much afraid of the bishop, therefore he hesitated. The most that Doyle could secure, after a long interview, was the promise of a definite answer the next day.

Father McCormack made use of the twenty-four hours' grace he had secured by calling on Major Kent. The Major was a Protestant, with strong anti-Papal convictions, and therefore was not, it might have been supposed, a good man to advise a priest on a delicate question of ecclesiastical etiquette. But the Major was eminently respectable, and his outlook upon life was staidly conservative. Father McCormack felt that if Major Kent thoroughly approved of the erection of a statue to General John Regan it was likely to be quite a proper thing to do.

"I'm not sure," said Father McCormack, "whether it will suit me to take the chair at this meeting the doctor's getting up or not. I'm not sure, I say. Can you tell me now, Major Kent, who's this American gentleman they're all talking about?"

"I don't know anything about him," said the Major, "but I'm bound to say he looks like a Protestant. I don't know whether that will make any difference to you or not."

"From the little I've seen of him—just across the street from the window of the Presbytery—I'd say you were right about his religion, but I needn't tell you, Major Kent, that I'm not a bigoted man. It wouldn't stop me taking the chair if he was a Protestant. It wouldn't stop me if he was a Presbyterian, and I can't say more than that. You know very well that I'd just as soon be sitting on a committee alongside of a Protestant as any ordinary kind of man. I'm not one that would let religion interfere too much."

"He seems quite respectable," said the Major. "He's been here three days now, and I never saw him drunk."

"It's not that either that's troubling me," said Father McCormack. "There's many a man gets drunk when he can, and I'd be the last to make too much out of that."

"I can't tell you any more about him," said the Major, "for that's all I know, except that he appears to be rich."

"The difficulty I'm in is on account of the bishop. He's getting to be mighty particular. I don't say he's wrong, mind you; only there it is. But sure, if no one in the place has anything to say against the American gentleman it's likely he'll turn out to be all right. But what about the fellow they want to put up the statue to?"

"General John Regan," said the Major.

"What about him? I never heard tell of him before."

"For the matter of that, nor did I."

"Who was he at all?"

"You'll have to ask Dr. O'Grady that. He's the only man who professes to know anything about him."

"As I was saying to you this minute," said Father McCormack, "I wouldn't mind if he was a Protestant."

"He hardly could be," said the Major, "with that name."

"There's many a Protestant that might be just as well deserving of a statue as maybe a bishop. But what I'm afraid of is that this fellow might be worse. For let me tell you, Major, there's worse things than Protestants, and I'm not saying that just because I'm talking to you. I'd say it to anyone."

This gratified Major Kent, but it did not enable him to give any information about General John Regan.

"There's no use asking me about him," he said wearily. "Ask Dr. O'Grady."

"If it was to turn out at the latter end," said Faflier McCormack, "that he was one of those French atheists, or if he had any hand in hunting the nuns out of Portugal, the bishop wouldn't be too well pleased when he heard that I'd been helping to put up a statue to him."

"You'll have to ask Dr. O'Grady. It's no good asking me."

"Will you tell me this, Major Kent, and I won't ask you another question. Are you going to the meeting yourself?"

"I am."

"Well now, you're a man with a position in the place and you wouldn't be going to a meeting of the sort unless it was all right. I'm inclined to think now that if you're going—I wouldn't give a thraneen for what Doyle might do. If that fellow saw half a chance of making sixpence by going to a meeting he'd go, if it was held for the purpose of breaking the windows of the Presbytery. That's the sort of man Doyle is. And I wouldn't mind Thady Gallagher. Thady is a kind-hearted poor fellow, though he's a bit foolish at times; but he's not the sort of man you could trust. He's too fond of politics, and that's a fact. Give Thady the opportunity of making a speech and you wouldn't be able to keep him at home from a meeting, whatever sort of a meeting it might be. But it's different with you, Major Kent."

The Major was deeply touched by this eulogy; so deeply touched that he felt it wrong to leave Father McCormack under the impression that he was going to the meeting out of any feeling of admiration for General John Regan.

"The fact is," he said, "that I wouldn't go near the meeting if I could help it."

"Is there anything against that General then?"

"It's not that. It's simply that I loathe and detest all public meetings, and I wouldn't go to this one or any other if I could get out of it."

"And why can't you get out of it? A man needn't go to a meeting unless he likes."

"He must," said the Major, "I must; any man must, if Dr. O'Grady gets at him."

"That's true, too," said Father McCormack, "and I don't mind telling you that I've been keeping out of the doctor's way ever since Doyle asked me. I'd rather not see him till I have my mind made up the one way or the other."

It was unfortunate for Father McCormack that Dr. O'Grady should at that moment have walked into the Major's study without even knocking at the door. He had just received answers to his letters from four of the most eminent Irish Members of Parliament He had asked them all to attend a meeting at Ballymoy and make speeches about General John Regan. They had all refused, offering the very flimsiest excuses. Dr. O'Grady was extremely indignant.

"I don't see what on earth use there is," he blurted out, "in our keeping Members of Parliament at all. Here we are paying these fellows L400 a year each, and when we ask for a perfectly simple speech—— Oh, I beg your pardon, Father McCormack, I didn't see you were here. But I daresay you quite agree with me. Every one must."

"Father McCormack came here," said the Major, "to ask about General John Regan."

"Who is he at all?" said the priest.

"A general," said Dr. O'Grady, "Irish extraction. Born in Ballymoy. Rose to great eminence in Bolivia. Finally secured the liberty of the Republic."

"Father McCormack seems to think," said the Major, "that he was some kind of anti-clerical socialist."

"I said he might be," said Father McCormack. "I didn't say he was, for I don't know a ha'porth about him. All I said was that if he turned out to be that kind of a man it wouldn't suit me to be putting up statues to him. The Bishop wouldn't like it."

"My impression is———" said Dr. O'Grady. "Mind, I don't say I'm perfectly certain of it, but my impression is that he built a cathedral before he died. Anyhow I never heard or read a single word against his character as a religious man. He may have been a little——" Dr. O'Grady winked slowly. "You know the kind of thing I mean, Father McCormack, when he was young. Most military men are, more or less. I expect now that the Major could tell us some queer stories about the sort of thing that goes on——"

"No, I couldn't," said the Major.

"In garrison towns," said Dr. O'Grady persuasively, "and of course it's worse on active service. Come now, Major, I'm not asking you to give yourself away, but you could——"

"No, I couldn't," said the Major firmly.

"What you mean is that you wouldn't," said Dr. O'Grady. "Not while Father McCormack is listening to you anyhow. And you may take my word for it that the old General was just the same. He may have been a bit of a lad in his early days——"

"I wouldn't mind that," said Father McCormack. "I wouldn't mind that if it was twice as much, so long——"

"But he'd never have said anything really disrespectful in the presence of a clergyman of any denomination. Whatever his faults were—and he had faults, of course—he wasn't that kind of man. So you needn't hesitate about taking the chair at the meeting, Father McCormack. I defy the most particular bishop that ever wore a purple stock to find out anything really bad about the General."

"If I have your word for that," said Father McCormack, "I'm satisfied."

"I'm not a rich man," said Dr. O'Grady. "I can't afford to lose money, but I'll pay down L50 to any man who proves anything bad about the General. And when I say bad I don't, mean things like——"

"I understand you," said Father McCormack.

"I mean," said Dr. O'Grady, "atheism of a blatant kind, or circulating immoral literature—Sunday papers, for instance—or wanting to turn the priests out of the schools, or not paying his dues——"

"I understand you," said Father McCormack.

"I know what I'm talking about," said Dr. O'Grady, "for I've had a man looking up all that's known about General John Regan in the National Library in Dublin."



CHAPTER VII

At the very bottom of the main street of Ballymoy, close to the little harbour where the fishing boats nestled together in stormy weather, there is a disused mill. Corn was ground in it long ago. The farmers brought it from the country round about after the threshing was over, and the stream which now flows idly into the sea was then kept busy turning a large wheel. Since the Americans have taken to supplying Ireland with flour ready ground, bleached, and fit for immediate use, the Irish farmers have left off growing wheat. Being wise men they see no sense in toiling when other people are willing to toil instead of them. The Ballymoy mill, and many others like it, lie idle. They are slipping quietly through the gradual stages of decay and will one day become economically valuable to the country again as picturesque ruins. Few things are more attractive to tourists than ruins, and the country which possesses an abundance of them is in a fair way to grow rich easily. But it is necessary that the ruins should be properly matured. No man with an educated taste for food will eat Stilton cheese which is only half decayed. No educated tourist will take long journeys and pay hotel bills in order to look at an immature ruin. The decaying mills of Ireland have not yet reached the profitable stage of development. Their doors and windows are still boarded up. Their walls are adorned with posters instead of ivy. No aesthetic archaeologist has as yet written a book about their architecture.

The Ballymoy mill was the property of Doyle. He bought it very cheap when the previous owner, a son of the last miller, lapsed into bankruptcy. He saw no immediate prospect of making money out of it, but he was one of those men—they generally end in being moderately rich—who believe that all real property will in the end acquire a value, if only it is possessed with sufficient patience. In the meanwhile, since buildings do not eat, and so long as they remain empty are not liable for rates, the mill did not cost Doyle anything. He tried several times to organise schemes by means of which he might be able to secure a rent for the mill. When it became fashionable, eight or ten years ago, to start what are tailed "industries" in Irish provincial towns, Doyle suggested that his mill should be turned into a bacon factory. A public meeting was held with Father McCormack in the chair, and Thady Gallagher made an eloquent speech. Doyle himself offered to take shares in the new company to the amount of L5. Father McCormack, who was named as a director, also took five L1 shares. It was agreed that Doyle should be paid L30 a year for the mill. At that point the scheme broke down, mainly because no one else would take any shares at all.

A couple of years later Doyle tried again. This time he suggested a stocking manufactory. Stockings are supposed to require less capital than bacon curing, and, as worked out on paper, they promise large profits. Doyle offered the mill for L25 a year this time, and was greatly praised by Thady Gallagher in the columns of the Connacht Eagle for his patriotic self-sacrifice. Another large meeting was held, but once more the public, though enthusiastic about the scheme, failed to subscribe the capital. A great effort was made the next year to induce the Government to buy the building for a L1,000, with a view to turning it into a Technical School. A petition was signed by almost everyone in Ballymoy setting forth the hungry desire of the people for instruction in the arts of life. Several Members of Parliament asked the Chief Secretary searching questions on the subject of the Ballymoy Technical School. But the Chief Secretary declared himself quite unable to wring the money out of the Treasury. Thady Gallagher wrote articles and made speeches which ought to have caused acute discomfort to the Prime Minister. But Doyle found himself obliged to give up the idea of a Technical School. He waited hopefully. In the end, he felt sure, some way of utilising the old mill would be found. In the meanwhile the building, though unprofitable to Doyle was not entirely useless. Its walls, boarded doors and windows, formed the most excellent place for the display of advertisements. The circuses which visited the town in summer covered a great deal of space with their posters. When retiring members of the Urban District Council wanted to be re-elected they notified their desire by means of placards pasted on the walls of Doyle's mill. All public meetings were advertised there. Doyle himself made nothing out of these advertisements; but Thady Gallagher did. He printed the posters, and it was admitted by everyone that he did it very well.

Two days after his arrival in Ballymoy, Mr. Billing strolled down to the harbour. He was a man of restless and energetic disposition, but the visits which he received from Dr. O'Grady, and the speeches about Home Rule to which Gallagher subjected him, began to worry him. In order to soothe his nerves he used to spend an hour or two morning and evening looking at the fishermen who spent the day in contemplating their boats. There is nothing in the world more soothing than the study of a fisherman's life on shore. When he is at sea it is probably strenuous enough. But then he very seldom is at sea, and when he is he is out of sight. Having, so to speak, drunk deeply of the torpor of Ballymoy harbour, Mr. Billing turned his face towards the shore and looked at the wall of Doyle's mill. He was startled to find six new posters stuck on it in a row. They were all bright green. Mr. Billing read them with interest.

The announcement opened with a prayer, printed in large type:

"GOD SAVE IRELAND,"

GENERAL JOHN REGAN

This was repeated at the bottom of each poster in the Irish language, which Mr. Billing could not read. Next to the prayer, in very much larger type, came the words:

"A PUBLIC MEETING,"

Then, in quite small letters:

"WILL BE HELD ON TUESDAY NEXT AT 3 P. M. IN THE MARKET SQUARE, OPPOSITE THE 'IMPERIAL HOTEL.'"

Mr. Billing read on and learned that Father McCormack would take the chair, that several distinguished Members of Parliament would address the meeting, that Mr. T. Gallagher, Chairman U. D. C., would also speak, and that—here the letters became immense—Mr. Horace P. Billing, of Bolivia, would give an account of the life of General John Regan, in whose honour it was proposed to erect a statue in Ballymoy.

Mr. Billing smiled. Then he turned and walked briskly to the hotel. He found Doyle and Thady Gallagher seated together on the bench outside the door. He addressed them cheerfully:

"Say, gentlemen," he said, "that doctor of yours seems to have got a move on this locality. The announcement of the meeting is a good thing, sure."

"The doctor," said Doyle, "is a fine man; but it would be better for him if he'd pay what he owes. I'm tired, so I am, of trying to get my money out of him."

"The doctor," said Gallagher, "has the good of the locality at heart, and whatever it might be that he takes in hand will be carried through. You may rely on the doctor."

Thady Gallagher had not yet been paid for printing the green posters. But he had every hope he would be when Mr. Billing handed over his subscription to the statue fund. He felt, it right to do all in his power to encourage Mr. Billing. Doyle, on the other hand, was becoming despondent. He did not like to see money which ought to be his frittered away on posters and the other necessary expenses of a public meeting. He was much less inclined to admire, the doctor's enterprise.

"I guess," said Mr. Billing, "that these Congressmen will draw some."

"If you mean the Members of Parliament," said Doyle, "the doctor told me this morning that they said they'd more to do than to be attending his meetings."

"It could be," said Gallagher hopefully, "that one of them might."

"They will not," said Doyle.

"We'll do without them," said Mr. Billing.

"That's what the doctor said to me," said Gallagher. "'We'll do without them, Thady,' said he, 'so long as we have Mr. Billing and Father McCormack and yourself,' meaning me, 'we'll have a good meeting if there never was a Member of Parliament near it.' And that's true too."

"If the doctor," said Doyle, "would pay what he owes instead of wasting his time over public meetings and statues and the like it would be better. Not that I'd say a word against the statue, or, for the matter of that, against the doctor, who's well liked in the town by all classes."

The Tuesday fixed for the meeting was a well chosen day. It was the occasion of one of the largest fairs held in Ballymoy during the year. The country people, small farmers and their wives, flock into the town whenever there is a fair. The streets are thronged with cattle lowing miserably. "Buyers," men whose business it is to carry the half-fed Connacht beasts to the fattening pastures of Meath and Kildare, assemble in large numbers and haggle over prices from early dawn till noon. No better occasion for the exploitation of a cause could possibly be chosen. And three o'clock was a very good hour. By that time the business of the fair is well over. The buying and selling is finished. But no one has gone home, and no one is more than partially drunk. It is safe to expect that everybody will welcome the entertainment that a meeting affords during the dull time which must intervene between the finishing of the day's business and the weary journey home.

The green posters were distributed far and wide. They adorned every gatepost and every wall sufficiently smooth to hold them within a circle of three miles radius around the town. There was some talk beforehand about the meeting. But on the whole the people displayed very little curiosity about General John Regan. It was taken for granted that he had been in some way associated with the cause of Irish Nationality, and one or two people professed to recollect that he had fought on the side of the Boers during the South African War. Whoever he was, the people were inclined to support the movement for erecting a statue to him by cheering anything which Thady Gallagher said. But they did not intend to support it in any other way. The Connacht farmer is like the rest of the human race in his dislike of being asked to subscribe to anything. He is superior to most other men in his capacity for resisting the pressure of the subscription list.

On the Saturday before the meeting Gallagher published a long article on the subject of the General in the Connacht Eagle. It was read, as all Gallagher's articles were, with respectful attention. Everybody expected to find out by reading it who the General was. Everyone felt, as he read it, or listened to it read aloud, that he was learning all he wanted to know, and did not discover until he came to talk the matter over afterwards with his friends that he knew no more when he had read the article than he did before.

It was not Thady Gallagher but Dr. O'Grady who wrote the article. Thady made several attempts and then gave up the matter in despair. Dr. O'Grady, though he was extremely busy at the time, had to do the writing. It was very well done, and calculated to heat to the boiling point the enthusiasm of all patriotic people. He began by praising Thomas Emmet. He passed from him to Daniel O'Connell. He recommended everyone to read John Mitchell's "Jail Journal." He described the great work done for Ireland by Charles Stewart Parnell. Then he said that General John Regan was, in his own way, at least the equal, possibly the superior, of any of the patriots he had named. He wound up the composition with the statement that it was unnecessary to recapitulate the great deeds of the General, because every Irishman worthy of the name knew all about them already.

No one read the article with more eagerness and expectation than Gallagher himself. As the day of the meeting drew nearer he was becoming more and more uncomfortable about his speech. He had not been able to find out either from Doyle or from Father McCormack anything whatever about the General. He did not want much. He was a practised orator and could make a very small amount of information go a long way in a speech, but he did want something, if it was only a date to which he might attach the General's birth or death. Doyle and the priest steadily referred him to Dr. O'Grady. From Sergeant Colgan he got nothing except a guess that the General might have been one of the Fenians. Dr. O'Grady, before the appearance of the article, promised that it would contain all that anyone needed to know. After the article was published Gallagher was ashamed to ask for further information, because he did not want to confess himself an Irishman unworthy of the name.

Doyle also was dissatisfied and became actually restive after the appearance of Saturday's Connacht Eagle. He was not in the least troubled by the vagueness of the leading article. He was not one of the speakers at the meeting, and it did not matter to him whether he knew anything about General John Regan or not. What annoyed him was the publication, in the advertisement columns of the paper, of a preliminary list of subscribers. In the first place such an advertisement cost money and could only be paid for out of Mr. Billing's subscription, thus further diminishing the small balance on which he was calculating as some compensation for the irrecoverable debt owed to him by Dr. O'Grady. In the second place his name appeared on the list as a donor, not of L5, but of L10. He knew perfectly well that he would not be expected to pay any subscription, but he was vaguely annoyed at the threat of such a liability.

On Sunday afternoon he called on Dr. O'Grady.

"Wasn't it agreed," he said, "that I was to be the treasurer of the fund for putting up the statue?"

"It was," said Dr. O'Grady, "and you are the treasurer. Didn't you see your name printed in the Connacht Eagle, 'Secretary, Dr. Lucius O'Grady. Treasurer, J. Doyle'?"

"If I'm the treasurer it's no more than right that I should have some say in the way the money's being spent, for let me tell you, doctor—and I may as well speak plain when I'm at it—I'm not satisfied. I've had some correspondence with a nephew of mine who's in that line of business himself up in Dublin, and he tells me that L100 is little enough for a statue of any size. Now I'm not saying that I want to close the account with a balance in hand——"

"It's what you do want, Doyle, whether you say it or not."

"But," said Doyle ignoring this interruption, "it wouldn't suit me if there was any debt at the latter end. For it's myself would have to pay it if there was, and that's what I'd not be inclined to do. The way you're spending money on posters and advertisements there'll be very little of the American gentleman's L100 left when it comes to buying the statue."

"I see your point all right, Doyle, but——"

"If you see it," said Doyle, "I'm surprised at you going on the way you are; but, sure, I might have known that you wouldn't care how much you'd spend or how much you'd owe at the latter end. There's that L60——"

"Don't harp on about that miserable L60," said Dr. O'Grady, "for I won't stand it. Here I am doing the very best I can to make money for you, taking no end of trouble, and all you do is to come grumbling to me day after day about some beggarly account that I happen to owe you."

"It's what I don't see is how I'm going to make a penny out of it at all, the way you're going on."

"Listen to me now, Doyle. Supposing—I just say supposing—the Government was to build a pier, a new pier, in Ballymoy, who do you think would get the contract for the job?"

"I would, of course," said Doyle, "for there'd be no other man in the town fit to take it."

"And how much do you suppose you'd make out of it?"

"What's the use of talking that way?" said Doyle. "Hasn't the Government built us two piers already, and is it likely they'd build us another?"

"That's not the point. What I'm asking you is: Supposing they did build another and you got the contract for it, how much do you suppose you'd make?"

"Well," said Doyle, "if it was a good-sized pier and if the engineer they sent down to inspect the work wasn't too smart altogether I might clear L100."

"Now, suppose," said Dr. O'Grady, "that you were able to sell the stones of that old mill of yours——"

"They're good stones, so they are."

"Exactly, and you'd expect a good price for them. Now suppose you succeeded in selling them to the Government as raw material for the pier——"

"They'd be nice and handy for the work," said Doyle. "Whoever was to use those stones for building the pier would save a devil of a lot of expense in carting."

"That, of course, would be considered in fixing the price of the stones."

"It would," said Doyle. "It would have to be, for I wouldn't sell them without it was."

"Under those circumstances," said Dr. O'Grady, "what do you suppose you'd make?"

"I'd make a tidy penny," said Doyle.

"Very well. Add that tidy penny to the L100 profit on the pier contract and it seems to me that it would pay you to lose a couple of pounds—and I don't admit that you will lose a penny—over the statue business."

The mention of the statue brought Doyle back from a pleasant dream to the region of hard fact.

"What's the good of talking?" he said. "The Government will build no more piers here."

"I'm not so sure of that. If we were to get a hold of one of the real big men, say the Lord-Lieutenant, if we were to bring him down here and do him properly—flags, you know, Doyle, and the town band, and somebody with a bouquet of flowers for his wife, and somebody else—all respectable people, Doyle—with an illuminated address—and if we were all to stand round with our hats in our hands and cheer—in fact if we were to do all the things that those sort of fellows really like to see done——"

"We could have flags," said Doyle, "and we could have the town band, and we could have all the rest of what you say; but what good would they be? The Lord-Lieutenant wouldn't come to Ballymoy. It's a backward place, so it is."

"I'll get to that in a minute," said Dr. O'Grady. "But just suppose now that we had him and did all the things I say, do you think he'd refuse us a simple pier when we asked for it?"

"I don't know but he would. Hasn't the Government built two piers here already? Is it likely they'd build a third?"

"Those two piers were built years and years ago," said Dr. O'Grady. "One of them is more than ten years old this minute, and they were both built by the last Government The present Lord-Lieutenant has probably never so much as heard of them. We shouldn't go out of our way to remind him of their existence. Nobody else in Ireland will remember anything about them. We'll start talking about the new pier as if it were quite an original idea that nobody had ever heard of before. We'd get it to a certainty."

Doyle was swept away by the glorious possibilities before him.

"If so be the Lord-Lieutenant was to come, and the Lady-Lieutenant with him, and more of the lords and ladies that does be attending on them up in Dublin Castle——"

"Aides-de-camp, and people of that sort," said Dr. O'Grady. "They'd simply swarm down on us."

"There'd have to be a luncheon for them," said Doyle.

"And it would be in your hotel. I forgot about the luncheon. There'll be a pot of money to be made out of that."

"With drinks and all," said Doyle, with deep conviction. "There would. The like of them people wouldn't be contented with porter."

"Champagne," said Dr. O'Grady, "is the recognised tipple for anybody high up in the Government service. It wouldn't be respectful not to offer it."

"But he won't come," said Doyle. "What would bring him?"

"The statue will bring him."

"The statue! Talk sense, doctor. What would the like of him want to be looking at statues for? Won't he have as many as he wants in Dublin Castle, and better ones than we'd be able to show him?"

"You're missing the point, Doyle. I'm not proposing to bring him down here simply to look at a statue. I'm going to ask him to unveil it. Now as far as I know the history of Ireland—and I'm as well up in it as most men—that would be an absolutely unprecedented invitation for any Lord-Lieutenant to receive. The novelty of the thing will attract him at once. And what's more, the idea will appeal to his better nature. I needn't tell you, Doyle, that the earnest desire of every Lord-Lieutenant is to assist the material and intellectual advancement of Ireland. He's always getting opportunities of opening technical schools and industrial shows of one sort or another. They've quite ceased to attract him. But we're displaying an entirely new spirit. By erecting a public statue in a town like this we are showing that we've arrived at an advanced stage of culture. There isn't another potty little one-horse town in Ireland that has ever shown the slightest desire to set up a great and elevating work of art in its midst. You may not appreciate that aspect of the matter, Doyle, but——"

"If I was to give my opinion," said Doyle, "I'd say that statues was foolishness."

"Exactly. But the Lord-Lieutenant, when he gets our invitation will give you credit for much finer feeling. Besides he'll see that we've been studying up our past history. The name of General John Regan will mean a great deal to him although it conveys very little to you."

"It's what Thady Gallagher is always asking," said Doyle, "who was the General?"

"Gallagher ought to know," said Dr. O'Grady, "and I've told him so."

"He does not know then. Nor I don't believe Father McCormack does. Nor I don't know myself. Not that it would trouble me if there never was a General, only that you have Mary Ellen's head turned with the notion that she'll be coming into a big fortune one of these days——"

"Is she not doing her work?" said Dr. O'Grady.

"Devil the tap she's done these two days, but what she couldn't help. Not that that bothers me, for it's nothing strange. She never was one for doing much unless you stood over her and drove her into it. But what has annoyed me is the way Constable Moriarty is never out of the kitchen or the back yard. He was after her before, but he's fifty times worse since he heard the talk about her being the niece of the General. Besides the notion he has that young Kerrigan wants her, which has made him wild."

"Moriarty ought to have more sense," said Dr. O'Grady.

"He ought," said Doyle, "but he hasn't. The tunes he whistles round the house would drive you demented if so be that you listened to them; but I needn't tell you I don't do that."

"You'll have to put up with it," said Dr. O'Grady. "It won't be for very long, and you needn't mind what Mary Ellen neglects so long as she attends properly on Mr. Billing."

"She'll attend him right enough," said Doyle. "Since ever she got the notion that he was going to make a lady of her, attending on him is the one thing that she will do."

"Then you needn't bother your head about anything else."



CHAPTER VIII

There are men in the world, a great many of them—who are capable of managing details with thoroughness and efficiency. These men make admirable lieutenants and fill subordinate positions so well that towards the end of their lives they are allowed to attend full dress evening parties with medals and stars hung round their necks or pinned on their coats. There are also a good many men who are capable of conceiving great ideas and forming vast plans, but who have an unconquerable aversion to anything in the way of a detail. These men generally end their days in obscure asylums, possibly in workhouses, and their ideas, after living for a while as subject matter for jests, perish unrealised. There is also a third kind of man, fortunately a very rare kind. He is capable of conceiving great ideas, and has besides an insatiable delight in working out details. He may end his days as a victorious general, or even as an emperor. If he prefers a less ostentatious kind of reward, he will die a millionaire.

Dr. Lucius O'Grady belonged to this third class. In the face of Doyle's objection to his expenditure on posters, he was capable of conceiving on the spur of the moment and without previous meditation, the audacious and magnificent plan of bringing the Lord-Lieutenant to Ballymoy and wrestling from a reluctant treasury a sufficient sum of money to build a third pier on the beach below the town. There may have been other men in Ireland capable of making such a plan. There was certainly no one else who would have set himself, as Dr. O'Grady did, with tireless enthusiasm, to work out the details necessary to the plan's success.

As soon as Doyle left him he mounted his bicycle and rode out to the Greggs' home. Mr. Gregg, being the District Inspector of Police, was usually a very busy man. But the Government, though a hard task-master in the case of minor officials, does not insist on anyone inspecting or being inspected on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Gregg had taken advantage of the Government's respect for revealed religion, and had gone out with a fishing rod to catch trout. Mrs. Gregg was at home. Being a bride of not more than three months' standing she had nothing particular to do, and was yawning rather wearily over the fashion-plates of a ladies' paper. She seemed unaffectedly glad to see Dr. O'Grady, and at once offered to give him tea. The doctor refused the tea, and plunged into his business.

"I suppose," he said, "that you'll have no objection to presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton when she comes to Ballymoy?"

"Is she coming?" said Mrs. Gregg. "How splendid!"

Before marrying Mr. Gregg she had lived in a Dublin suburb. Accustomed to the rich and varied life of a metropolis she found Ballymoy a little dull. She recognised Major Kent as "a dear old boy," but he was quite unexciting. Mrs. Ford, the wife of a rather morose stipendiary magistrate, had severely snubbed Mrs. Gregg. There was no one else, and the gay frocks of Mrs. Gregg's bridal outfit were wasting their first freshness with hardly an opportunity of being worn.

"Yes," said Dr. O'Grady. "She's coming with the Lord-Lieutenant to unveil the new statue."

"How splendid!" said Mrs. Gregg again. "I heard something about the statue, but please tell me more, Dr. O'Grady. I do so want to know."

"Oh, there's nothing particular to tell about the statue. It's to be to the memory of General John Regan, and will be unveiled in the usual way."

This did not add much to the information which Mr. Gregg, who himself had gleaned what he knew from Sergeant Colgan, had already given her. But Mrs. Gregg was quite content with it. She did not, in fact, want to know anything about the statue. She only asked about it because she thought she ought to. Her mind was dwelling on the dazzling prospect of presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton.

"Of course I should love to," she said. "But I wonder if I could—really, I mean."

Dr. O'Grady was a man of quick intelligence. He realised at once that Mrs. Gregg had not been listening to his account of the statue, but that she was replying to his original suggestion.

"It's not the least difficult," he said. "Anyone could do it, but we'd like to have it done really well. That's the reason we're asking you."

"Don't you have to walk backwards?" said Mrs. Gregg. "I'd love to do it, of course, but I never have before."

"There's no necessity to walk at all. You simply stand in the front row of the spectators with the bouquet in your hand. Then, when she stops opposite you and smiles—she'll be warned beforehand, of course—and she's had such a lot of practice that she's sure to do it right—you curtsey and hand up the bouquet. She'll take it, and the whole thing will be over."

"Oh," said Mrs. Gregg, "is that all?"

Dr. O'Grady was conscious of a note of disappointment in her voice. He felt that he had over-emphasized the simplicity of the performance. Mrs. Gregg would have preferred a longer ceremony. He did his best to make such amends as were still possible.

"Of course," he said, "your photograph will be in all the illustrated papers afterwards, and there will be a long description of your dress in The Irish Times."

"I'd love to do it," said Mrs. Gregg.

"Very well, then," said Dr. O'Grady, "we'll consider that settled."

Leaving Mrs. Gregg, he rode on to Major Kent's house. The Major, like all men who are over forty years of age, who have good consciences and balances in their banks, spent his Sunday afternoons sleeping in an armchair. No one likes being awakened, either in a bedroom by a servant, in a railway carriage by a ticket collector, or on a Sunday afternoon by a friend. The Major answered Dr. O'Grady's greeting snappishly.

"If you've come," he said, "to ask me to make a speech at that meeting of yours on Tuesday, you may go straight home again, for I won't do it."

"I'm not such a fool," said Dr. O'Grady pleasantly, "as to ask you to do any such thing. I know jolly well you couldn't. Even if you could and would, we shouldn't want you. We have Father McCormack, and Thady Gallagher, besides the American. That's as much as any audience could stand!"

"If it isn't that you want," said the Major, "what is it?"

"It's a pity you're in such an uncommonly bad temper, Major. If you were even in your normal condition of torpid sulkiness you'd be rather pleased to hear what I'm going to tell you."

"If you're going to tell me that you've dropped that statue folly, I shall be extremely pleased."

"The news I have," said Dr. O'Grady, "is far better than that. We've decided to ask the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil the statue."

"He won't come," said the Major, "so that's all right."

"He will come when it's explained to him that——"

"Oh, if you offer him one of your explanations———"

"Look here, Major. I don't think you quite grasp the significance of what I'm telling you. Ever since I've known you you've been deploring the disloyalty of the Irish people. I don't blame you for that. You're by way of being a Unionist, so of course you have to. But if you were the least bit sincere in what you say, you'd be delighted to hear that Doyle and Thady Gallagher—Thady hasn't actually been told yet, but when he is he'll be as pleased as everyone else—you ought to be simply overjoyed to find that men like Doyle are inviting the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil their statue. It shows that they're getting steadily loyaler and loyaler. Instead of exulting in the fact you start sneering in a cynical and altogether disgusting way."

"I don't believe much in Doyle's loyalty," said the Major.

"Fortunately," said Dr. O'Grady, "Doyle thoroughly believes in yours. He agrees with me that you are the first man who ought to be asked to join the reception committee. You can't possibly refuse."

"I would refuse if I thought there was the slightest chance of the Lord-Lieutenant coming. Do you think I want to stand about in a tall hat along with half the blackguards in town?"

"Mrs. Gregg is going to present a bouquet," said Dr. O'Grady.

"Looking like a fool in the middle of the street, while you play silly tricks with a statue?"

"You won't be asked to do all that," said Dr. O'Grady.

"I am being asked. You're asking me this minute, and if I thought it would come off——"

"As you think it won't you may as well join the committee."

"I won't be secretary," said the Major, "and I won't have hand, act, or part, in asking the Lord-Lieutenant to come here. We don't want him, for one thing."

"You'll not be asked so much as to sign a paper," said Dr. O'Grady. "If your name is required at the bottom of any document I'll write it for you myself."

"I wish to goodness," said the Major, "that Billing—if that's the man's name—had stayed in America attending to his own business, whatever it is, instead of coming here and starting all this fuss. There'll be trouble before you've done, O'Grady, more trouble than you care for. I wish to God it was all well over."

Nothing is more gratifying to the prophet of evil than the fulfilment of his own prediction. When the fulfilment follows hard on the prophecy, when not more than half an hour separates them, the prophet ought to be a very happy man. This was Major Kent's case. He foretold trouble of the most exasperating kind for Dr. O'Grady, and he was immediately justified by the event. Unfortunately he did not expect an immediate fulfilment of his words. Therefore he turned round in his chair and went to sleep again when the doctor left him. If he had been sanguine enough to expect that the doctor would be entangled in embarrassments at once, he would probably have roused himself. He would have followed Dr. O'Grady back to Ballymoy and would have had the satisfaction of gloating over the first of a long series of annoying difficulties. But the Major, though confident that trouble would come, had no hope that it would begin as soon as it did.

Dr. O'Grady was riding back to Ballymoy on his bicycle when he met Mrs. Ford, the wife of the stipendiary magistrate. She was walking briskly along the road which led out of the town. This fact at once aroused a feeling of vague uneasiness in the doctor's mind. Mrs. Ford was a stout lady of more than fifty years of age. She always wore clothes which seemed, and probably were, much too tight for her. Her husband's position and income entitled him to keep a pony trap, therefore Mrs. Ford very seldom walked at all. Dr. O'Grady had never before seen her walk quickly. It was plain, too, that on this occasion Mrs. Ford was walking for the mere sake of walking, a most unnatural thing for her to do. The road she was on led nowhere except to Major Kent's house, several miles away, and it was quite impossible to suppose that she meant to call on him. She had, as Dr. O'Grady knew, quarrelled seriously with Major Kent two days earlier.

Dr. O'Grady, slightly anxious and very curious, got off his bicycle and approached Mrs. Ford on foot. He noticed at once that her face was purple in colour. It was generally red, and the unaccustomed exercise she was taking might account for the darker shade. Dr. O'Grady, arriving within a few yards of her, took off his hat very politely. The purple of Mrs. Ford's face darkened ominously.

"Nice day," said Dr. O'Grady. "How's Mr. Ford?"

Mrs. Ford acknowledged this greeting with a stiff, scarcely perceptible bow. Dr. O'Grady realised at once that she was angry, very seriously angry about something. Under ordinary circumstances Mrs. Ford's anger would not have caused Dr. O'Grady any uneasiness. She was nearly always angry with someone, and however angry she might be she would be obliged to call on Dr. O'Grady for assistance if either she or her husband fell ill. There was no other doctor in the neighbourhood. The simplest and easiest thing, under the circumstances, would have been to pass on without comment, and to wait patiently until Mrs. Ford either caught influenza or was so deeply offended with someone else as to forget her anger against him. Society in small country towns is held together very largely by the fact that it is highly inconvenient, if not actually impossible, to keep two quarrels burning briskly at the same time. When, a week or two before, Mrs. Ford had been seriously angry with Mrs. Gregg, she confided her grievances to Dr. O'Grady. Now that she was annoyed with him she would be compelled to condone Mrs. Gregg's offence in order to tell her what Dr. O'Grady had done. In due time, so Dr. O'Grady knew, he would be forgiven in order that he might listen to the story of the quarrel, which by that time she would have picked with Major Kent. Therefore the doctor's first impulse was to imitate the Levite in the parable, and, having looked at Mrs. Ford with sympathy, to pass by on the other side.

But Dr. O'Grady was engaged in a great enterprise. He did not see how Mrs. Ford's anger could make or mar the success of the Lord-Lieutenant's visit to Ballymoy, but he could not afford to take risks. No wise general likes to leave even a small wood on the flank of his line of march without discovering whether there is anything in it or not. Dr. O'Grady determined to find out, if he could, what Mrs. Ford was sulking about.

"I daresay you have heard," he said, "about the Lord-Lieutenant's visit to Ballymoy. The date isn't fixed yet, but——"

Mrs. Ford sniffed and walked on without speaking. Dr. O'Grady was not the kind of man who is easily baffled. He turned round and walked beside her.

"I needn't tell you," he said, "that the visit may mean a good deal to Mr. Ford. We've all felt for a long time that his services and ability entitle him to some recognition from the Government."

Mrs. Ford was quite unmollified. She walked on without looking round. She even walked a little quicker than she had been walking before. This was a foolish thing to do. She was a fat and elderly lady. Some of her clothes, if not all of them, were certainly too tight for her. The doctor was young and in good condition. She could not possibly hope to outstrip him in a race.

"My idea is," said Dr. O'Grady, "that when the Lord-Lieutenant meets Mr. Ford and becomes personally acquainted with him—there's to be a lunch, you know, in the hotel. A pretty good lunch, the best Doyle can do. Well, I confidently expect that when the Lord-Lieutenant finds out for himself what an able and energetic man Mr. Ford is—— After all, there are much nicer places than Ballymoy, besides all the jobs there are going under the Insurance Act, jolly well paid some of them, and you'd like living in Dublin, wouldn't you, Mrs. Ford?"

Mrs. Ford stood still suddenly. She was evidently going to say something. Dr. O'Grady waited. He had to wait for some time, because the lady was very-much out of breath. At last she spoke.

"Dr. O'Grady," she said, "I believe in plain speaking."

Neither Dr. O'Grady nor anyone else in Ballymoy doubted the truth of this. Nearly everybody had been spoken to plainly by Mrs. Ford at one time or another. Kerrigan, the butcher, was spoken to with uncompromising plainness once a week, on Saturday mornings.

"Quite right," said Dr. O'Grady, "there's nothing like it."

"Then I may as well tell you," said Mrs. Ford, "that I think it was due to my position—however much you may dislike me personally——"

"I don't. On the contrary——"

"——Due to my position as the wife of the resident magistrate that I, and not that Mrs. Gregg, should have been invited to present the bouquet to Lady Chesterton."

Dr. O'Grady gasped. Then he realised that he had made a fearful blunder.

"Half an hour ago," said Mrs. Ford, "that woman, who isn't even a lady, bounced into my house, giggling, and told me to my face that you had asked her——"

"Silly little thing, isn't she?" said Dr. O'Grady. "But of course, you have far too much sense to be annoyed by anything she said."

"Don't imagine for a moment," said Mrs. Ford, "that I am vexed. The slight, although it was evidently intentional, does not affect me in the least. If you knew me a little better than you do, Dr. O'Grady, you would understand that I am not at all the sort of person who cares about presenting bouquets."

"Of course not," said Dr. O'Grady. "We quite realised that. We understood that in your position, as wife of the resident magistrate of the district, the presentation of a bouquet would have been infra dig. After all, what's a bouquet? Poor little Mrs. Gregg! Of course it's a great promotion for her and she's naturally a bit above herself. But no one would dream of asking you to present a bouquet. We have far too high a respect for Mr. Ford's position."

"I think," said Mrs. Ford, "that I ought to have been consulted."

"Didn't you get my letter?"

"I got no letter whatever. The first news I had of his Excellency's intention of visiting Ballymoy came to me from that Mrs. Gregg half an hour ago, when she rushed into my drawing-room with her hair tumbling about her ears——"

"That's the worst of Doyle. He means well, but he's frightfully careless."

"What has Mr. Doyle to do with it?"

"I gave him the letter to post. Did you really not get it?"

"I got no letter whatever."

"I don't know what you must have thought of us. I don't know what Mr. Ford must have thought. I don't know how to apologise. But the first thing we did, the very first——Mrs. Gregg and the bouquet were a mere afterthought, we just tacked her on to the programme so that the poor little woman wouldn't feel out of it. She is a silly little thing, you know. Not more than a child after all. It was better to humour her."

"What was in the letter which you say you posted?" said Mrs. Ford.

"I didn't say I posted it. I said Doyle forgot to. It's in his pocket at this moment, I expect."

"What was in it?"

"Can you ask? There is only one thing which could possibly be in it. It expresses the unanimous wish of the committee—the reception committee, you know—Major Kent's on it—that you should present an illuminated address of welcome to His Excellency."

"If such a letter were really written——"

"My dear Mrs. Ford! But I don't ask you to take my word for it. Just walk straight into Ballymoy yourself. I'll stay here till you come back. Go into the hotel. You'll find Doyle in his own room drinking whisky and water with Thady Gallagher. Don't say a word to him. Don't ask him whether he was given a letter or not. Simply put your hand into his breast pocket and take it out."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Ford. "I do not care to have anything to do with Mr. Doyle when he is drunk."

"He won't be. Not at this hour. It takes a lot to make Doyle drunk."

"When the letter arrives, if it ever does, I shall consult Mr. Ford as to what answer I shall give."

"I can tell you what he'll say beforehand," said Dr. O'Grady. "He'll realise the importance of the illuminated address. He'll understand that it's the thing and that the bouquet——"

"Good-bye, Dr. O'Grady," said Mrs. Ford.

The doctor mounted his bicycle. His face was very nearly as purple as Mrs. Ford's. He had, with the greatest difficulty survived a crisis. He rode at top speed into Ballymoy, and dismounted, very hot, at the door of the hotel. It was shut. He ran round to the back of the house and entered the yard. Constable Moriarty and Mary Ellen were sitting side by side on the wall of the pig-stye. They were sitting very close together. Moriarty was whistling "Eileen Allan-nah" softly in Mary Ellen's ear.

"Where's Mr. Doyle?" said Dr. O'Grady.

"As regards the visit of the Lord-Lieutenant," said Constable Moriarty rousing himself and moving a little bit away from Mary Ellen, "what I was saying this minute to Mary Ellen was——"

"Where's Mr. Doyle?" said Dr. O'Grady.

"He's within," said Mary Ellen. "Where else would he be?"

"As regards the Lord-Lieutenant," said Constable Moriarty, "and seeing that Mary Ellen might be a near friend of the gentleman that the statue's for——"

Dr. O'Grady hurried through the back door. He found Doyle sitting over account books in his private-room. That was his way of spending Sunday afternoon.

"A sheet of notepaper," said Dr. O'Grady. "Quick now, Doyle. I have my fountain pen, so don't bother about ink."

"Where's the hurry?" said Doyle.

"There's every hurry."

He wrote rapidly, folded the letter, addressed it to Mrs. Ford, and handed it to Doyle.

"Put that in your trousers' pocket," he said, "and roll it round a few times. I want it to look as if it had been there for two or three days."

"What's the meaning of this at all?" said Doyle.

"Now get your hat. Go off as fast as you can pelt to Mr. Ford's house. Give that letter to the servant and tell her that you only found out this afternoon that you'd forgotten to post it."

"Will you tell me——?"

"I'll tell you nothing till you're back. Go on now, Doyle. Go at once. If you hurry you'll get to the house before she does. She was two miles out of the town when I left her and too exhausted to walk fast. But if you do meet her remember that you haven't seen me since yesterday. Have you got that clear in your head? Very well. Off with you. And, I say, I expect the letter will be looking all right when you take it out again, but if it isn't just rub it up and down the front of your trousers for a while. I want it to be brownish and a good deal crumpled. It won't do any harm if you blow a few puffs of tobacco over it."



CHAPTER IX

An hour later Doyle entered the doctor's consulting room.

"I have it done," he said. "I done what you bid me; but devil such a job ever I had as what it was." Doyle had evidently suffered from some strong emotion, anger perhaps, or terror. He felt in his pocket as he spoke, and, finding that he had no handkerchief, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked at his hand afterwards and sighed. The hairs on the back of it were pasted down with sweat "Have you such a thing as a drop of anything to drink in the house?"

"I have not," said Dr. O'Grady, "how could I? Do you think I've lost all my self-respect? Is it likely I'd order another bottle of whisky out of your shop when you're dunning me every day of my life for the price of the last I got? Tell me what happened about the letter?"

Doyle passed a parched tongue across his lips. The inside of his mouth was quite dry. Extreme nervous excitement often produces this effect.

"If it was even a cup of tea," he said, "it would be better than nothing. I've a terrible thirst on me."

"Sorry," said Dr. O'Grady, "but I've no tea either. Not a grain in the house since last Friday. I hope this will be a lesson to you, Doyle, and will teach you not to ballyrag your customers in future. But I don't want to rub it in. Get on with your story."

"It could be," said Doyle, "that there'd be water in your pump. I'm not sure will I be able to speak much without I drink something."

"The pump's all right," said Dr. O'Grady. "Just sit where you are for a moment and I'll fetch you some water. It may give you typhoid. I wouldn't drink it myself without boiling it, but that's your look out."

He left the moor and returned a few minutes later with a large tumbler of cold water. Doyle looked at it mournfully. He knew perfectly well that the doctor had both whisky and tea in the house, but he recognised the impossibility of getting either the one or the other. He raised the glass to his mouth.

"Glory be to God," he said, "but it's the first time I've wetted my lips with the same this twenty years!"

"It will do you a lot of good if it doesn't give you typhoid," said Dr. O'Grady. "How did you get so frightfully thirsty?"

The question was natural. Doyle drank the whole tumbler of water at a draught. There was no doubt that he had been very thirsty.

"Will you tell me now," he said, "what had that one in the temper she was in?"

"Mrs. Ford," said Dr. O'Grady, "was annoyed because she thought she wasn't going to be given a chance of making herself agreeable to the Lord-Lieutenant."

"If she speaks to the Lord-Lieutenant," said Doyle, "after the fashion she was speaking to me, it's likely that she'll not get the chance of making herself agreeable to him a second time. Devil such a temper I ever saw any woman in, and I've seen some in my day."

"I know she'd be a bit savage. I hoped you wouldn't have met her."

"I did meet her. Wasn't she turning in at the gate at the same time that I was myself? 'There's a letter here, ma'am,' says I, 'that the doctor told me I was to give to you,' 'I suppose it was half an hour ago,' said she, 'that he told you that,' Well, I pulled the letter out of my pocket, and I gave it a rub along the side of my pants the same as you told me. 'I suppose you're doing that,' said she, 'to put some dirt on it, to make it look,' said she, 'as if it had been in your pocket a week.'"

"You wouldn't think to look at her that she was so cute," said Dr. O'Grady. "What did you say?"

"I said nothing either good or bad," said Doyle, "only that it was to get the dirt off the letter, and not to be putting it on that I was giving it a bit of a rub. Well, she took the letter and she opened it. Then she looked me straight in the face. 'When did you get this letter from the doctor?' says she. So I told her it was last Friday you give it to me, and that I hadn't seen you since, and didn't care a great deal if I never seen you again. 'You impudent blackguard,' says she, 'the letter's not an hour written. The ink's not more than just dry on it yet,' 'I'm surprised,' said I, 'that it's that much itself. It's dripping wet I'd expect it to be with the sweat I'm in this minute on account of the way I've run to give it to you.'"

"Good," said Dr. O'Grady. "If there was a drop of whisky in the house I'd give it to you. I'll look in a minute. There might be some left in the bottom of the bottle. A man who can tell a lie like that on the spur of the moment——"

"It was true enough about the sweat," said Doyle. "You could have wrung my shirt into a bucket, though it wasn't running did it, for I didn't run. It was the way she was looking at me. I'm not overly fond of Mr. Ford, and never was; but I don't know did ever I feel as sorry for any man as I did for him when she was looking at me."

The doctor rose and took a bottle of whisky from the cupboard in the corner of the room. There was enough in it to give Doyle a satisfactory drink and still to leave some for the doctor himself. He got another tumbler and two bottles of soda water.

"You needn't be opening one of them for me," said Doyle, "I have as much water drunk already as would drown all the whisky you have in the bottle. What I take now I'll take plain."

"She may be a bit sceptical about the letter," said Dr. O'Grady, "but I expect when she's talked it over with Ford she'll see the sense of presenting the illuminated address."

"Is it that one present the address? Believe you me, doctor, if she does the Lord-Lieutenant won't be inclined for giving us the pier. The look of her would turn a barrel of porter sour."

"She'll look quite different," said Dr. O'Grady, "when the time comes. After all, Ford has to make the best of his opportunities like the rest of us. He can't afford to allow his wife to scowl at the Lord-Lieutenant."

"Was there no one else about the place, only her?" said Doyle.

"There were others, of course; but—the fact is, Doyle, if we got her back up at the start her husband would have written letters to Dublin Castle crabbing the whole show. Those fellows up there place extraordinary confidence in resident magistrates. They'd have been much more inclined to believe him than either you or me. If Ford was to set to work to spoil our show we'd probably not have got the Lord-Lieutenant down here at all. That's why I was so keen on your getting the letter to her at once, and leaving her under the impression that you'd had it in your pocket for two days."

"Devil the sign of believing any such thing there was about her when I left."

"She may come to believe it later on," said Dr. O'Grady, "when she and Ford have had time to talk the whole thing over together."

The doctor's servant came into the room while he spoke.

"Constable Moriarty is outside at the door," she said, "and he's wishing to speak with you. There's a young woman along with him."

"Mary Ellen, I expect," said Dr. O'Grady.

"He's upset in his mind about that same Mary Ellen," said Doyle, "ever since he heard she was the niece of the General. It's day and night he's round the hotel whistling all sorts and——"

"You told me all about that before," said Dr. O'Grady. "Bring him in, Bridgy, bring in the pair of them, and let's hear what it is they want."

Constable Moriarty entered the room, followed at a little distance by Mary Ellen. He led her forward, and set her in front of Dr. O'Grady. He looked very much as Touchstone must have looked when he presented the rustic Audrey to the exiled Duke as "a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own."

"If you want a marriage license," said Dr. O'Grady, "you've come to the wrong man. Go up to Father McCormack."

"I do not want a marriage license," said Constable Moriarty, "for I'm not long enough in the force to get leave to marry. And to do it without leave is what I wouldn't care to risk."

"If you don't want to marry her," said Doyle, "I'd be glad if you'd let her alone the way she'd be able to do her work. It's upsetting her mind you are with the way you're going on."

"Is it true what they tell me," said Moriarty, "that the Lord-Lieutenant's coming to the town?"

"I think we may say it is true," said Dr. O'Grady.

"To open the statue you're putting up to the General?"

"'Open' isn't the word used about statues," said Dr. O'Grady, "but you've got the general idea right enough."

"What I was saying to Mary Ellen," said Moriarty, "is that seeing as she's the niece of the General——"

"She's no such thing," said Doyle, "and well you know it."

"The doctor has it put out about her that she is," said Moriarty, "and Mary Ellen's well enough content. Aren't you, Mary Ellen?"

"I am surely," said Mary Ellen. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Look here, Moriarty," said Dr. O'Grady, "if you've got any idea into your head that there's a fortune either large or small coming to Mary Ellen out of this business you're making a big mistake."

"I wasn't thinking any such thing," said Moriarty. "Don't I know well enough it's only talk?"

"It will be as much as we can possibly do," said Dr. O'Grady, "to pay for the statue and the incidental expenses. Pensioning off Mary Ellen afterwards is simply out of the question."

"Let alone that she doesn't deserve a pension," said Doyle, "and wouldn't get one if we were wading up to our knees in sovereigns."

"So you may put it out of your head that Mary Ellen will make a penny by it," said Dr. O'Grady.

"It wasn't that I was thinking of at all," said Moriarty, "for I know you couldn't do it. My notion—what I was saying to Mary Ellen a minute ago—is that if the Lord-Lieutenant was to be told—at the time that he'd be looking at the statue—whenever that might be—that Mary Ellen was the niece of the General——"

"If you're planning out a regular court presentation for Mary Ellen," said Dr. O'Grady, "the thing can't be done. No one here is in a position to present anyone else because we have none of us been presented ourselves. Besides, it wouldn't be the least use to her if she was presented. The Lord-Lieutenant wouldn't take her on as an upper housemaid or anything of that sort merely because she'd been presented to him as General John Regan's niece."

"It wasn't a situation for Mary Ellen I was thinking of," said Moriarty.

"In the name of God," said Doyle, "will you tell us what it is you have in your mind?"

"What I was thinking," said Moriarty, "was that if the matter was represented to the Lord-Lieutenant in a proper manner—-about Mary Ellen being the General's niece and all to that—he might, maybe, see his way to making me a sergeant. It was that I was saying to you, Mary Ellen, wasn't it, now?"

"It was," said Mary Ellen.

"The idea of trotting out Mary Ellen on the occasion isn't at all a bad one," said Dr. O'Grady. "I'll see what can be done about it."

"I'm obliged to you," said Moriarty.

"But I don't promise that you'll be made a sergeant, mind that now."

"Sure I know you couldn't promise that," said Moriarty. "But you'll do the best you can. Come along now, Mary Ellen. It's pretty near time for me to be going on patrol, and the sergeant will check me if I'm late."

"There's something in that idea of Moriarty's," said Dr. O'Grady, when he and Doyle were alone again.

"I don't see what good will come of it," said Doyle, "and I'm doubting whether Thady Gallagher will be pleased. Mary Ellen's mother was a cousin of his own."

"She's a good-looking girl," said Dr. O'Grady. "If we had her cleaned up a bit and a nice dress put on her she'd look rather well standing at the foot of the statue. I expect the Lord-Lieutenant would be pleased to see her."

"And who'd be getting the lunch for the Lord-Lieutenant," said Doyle, "when Mary Ellen would be playing herself?"

"We'll get someone to manage the lunch all right. The great thing for us is to be sure of making a good general impression on the Lord-Lieutenant, and I think Mary Ellen would help. I daresay you've never noticed it, Doyle—it would be hard for you when she will not wash her face—but she really is a good-looking girl. The Lord-Lieutenant will want something of the sort to look at after he's faced Mrs. Ford and her illuminated address. She's not exactly—-"

"The man that would run away with that one," said Doyle vindictively, "would do it in the dark if he did it at all."

"Besides," said Dr. O'Grady, "we ought to think of poor little Mary Ellen herself. It'll be a great day for her, and she'll enjoy having a new dress."

"Who's to pay for the dress?" said Doyle.

"The dress will be paid for out of the general funds. I'll ask Mrs. Gregg to see about having it made. She has remarkably good taste. I'll tell her not to get anything very expensive, so you need not worry about that. And now, Doyle, unless there's anything else you want to settle with me at once, I think I'll write our invitation to the Lord-Lieutenant."

"It would be well if you did," said Doyle, "so as we'd know whether he's coming or not."

"Oh, he'll come. If he boggles at it at all I'll go up to Dublin and see him myself. A short verbal explanation—— We'll let him choose his own date."

Doyle lit his pipe and walked back to the hotel. He found Thady Gallagher waiting for him in his private room.

"What's this I'm after hearing," said Gallagher, "about the Lord-Lieutenant?"

"He's coming down here," said Doyle, "to open the new statue."

He spoke firmly, for he detected a note of displeasure in the tone in which Thady Gallagher asked this question.

"I don't know," said Gallagher, "would I be altogether in favour of that."

"And why not? Mustn't there be someone to open it? And mightn't it as well be him as another?"

"It might not as well be him."

"Speak out, Thady, what have you against the man?"

"I'm a good Nationalist," said Gallagher, "and I always was, and my father before me was the same."

"I'm that myself," said Doyle.

"And I'm opposed to flunkeyism, whether it's the flunkeyism of the rent office or———"

"Well and if you are, isn't it the same with all of us?"

"What I say is this," said Gallagher, "as long as the people of Ireland is denied the inalienable right of managing their own affairs I'd be opposed to welcoming into our midst the emissaries of Dublin Castle, and I'd like to know, so I would, what the people of this locality will be saying to the man that's false to his principles and goes back on the dearest aspirations of our hearts?"

He glared quite fiercely while he spoke, but Doyle remained serenely unimpressed.

"Talk sense now, Thady," he said. "Nobody'll say a word without it'd be yourself and you making a speech at the time. It's for the good of the town that we're getting him down here."

"What good?" said Gallagher, "tell me that now. What good will come of the like?"

Doyle was unwilling to confide the whole pier scheme to Gallagher. He contented himself with a vague reply.

"There's many a thing," he said, "that would be for the good of the town that might be got if it was represented properly to the Lord-Lieutenant."

"If I thought that," said Gallagher, "I might——"

He was in a difficult position. He did not want to quarrel with Doyle, who provided him with a good deal of bottled porter, but he did not want to identify himself with a public welcome to the Lord-Lieutenant, because he had hopes of becoming a Member of Parliament. The idea of conferring a benefit on the town attracted him as offering a way out of his difficulty.

"I might———" he repeated slowly. "I wouldn't say but it's possible that I might."

"And you will," said Doyle soothingly, "you will."

"I'll not be a party to any address of welcome from the Urban District Council," said Gallagher.

"We wouldn't ask it of you. Doesn't everybody know that you wouldn't consent to it?"

"It's the Major put you up to it," said Gallagher.

"It was not then."

"If it wasn't him it was Mr. Ford, the R.M."

"If you'd seen Mrs. Ford when she heard of it," said Doyle, "you wouldn't be saying that. Tell me this now, Thady. Have you your speech ready for the meeting on Tuesday? Everybody's saying you'll be making a grand one."

"I haven't it what you'd call rightly ready," said Gallagher, "but I have it so as it will be ready when the time comes."

"It's you the people will be wanting to hear," said Doyle. "It's you they'd rather be listening to than any other one even if he was a member of Parliament: It's my opinion, Thady, and there's more than me that says it—it's my opinion there's better men that isn't in Parliament than some that is. I'll say no more presently; but some day I'll be doing more than say it."



CHAPTER X

The public meeting was a very great success, in spite of the absence of the Members of Parliament, who certainly gave poor value for their salaries. The town band, headed by young Kerrigan, who played the cornet, paraded the streets for half-an-hour before the meeting. It played "The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond" three times over, "The Boys of Wexford" twice, and "God Save Ireland" four times. This served to remind the people that something of an interesting and patriotic kind was going to happen. A band is much more effective in attracting public attention than a town crier, and it ought, one may suppose, to arrange a kind of code of tunes by means of which people would be able to tell at once without verbal inquiry what sort of event was intended. For an auction of household furniture, for instance, a thing which takes place when a family leaves the locality, the band might play "The Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls." Everybody would recognise the appropriateness of the words about the banquet hall deserted, and the departure of the people who had used it. For the other kind of auction, that at which the cows of men who refuse to pay their rents are sold, "God Save Ireland," would be suitable, and anyone who heard it would know that though he might attend the auction he had better not bid. An ingenious musician would have no difficulty in finding tunes which would suggest the presentation of illuminated addresses to curates or bank managers. Meetings convened for the purpose of expressing confidence in the Members of Parliament, of either the Nationalist or the Unionist parties, would naturally be announced by a performance of Handel's fine song "Angels ever Bright and Fair." There might be a difficulty about unusual events like the erection of statues, but a tune might be kept for them which would at all events warn people not to expect an auction, a presentation or a political meeting.

Nearly half the people who were doing business in the fair assembled at three o'clock in the square outside Doyle's hotel. According to the estimate printed afterwards in the Connacht Eagle there were more than two thousand persons present. Of these at least twenty listened to all the speeches that were made. The number of those who heard parts of some of the speeches was much larger, amounting probably to sixty, for there was a good deal of coming and going, of moving in and out of the group round the speakers. The rest of the audience stood about in various parts of the square. Men talked to each other on the interesting questions of the price of cattle and the prospects of a change in the weather. Women stood together with parcels in their hands and looked at each other without talking at all. But everyone was so far interested in the speeches as to join in the cheers when anything which ought to be cheered was said. The twenty stalwart listeners who stood out all the speeches attended to what was said and started the cheers at the proper moments. The stragglers who, hearing only a sentence or two now and then, were liable to miss points, took up the cheers which were started. The mass of the men, those who were talking about cattle, very courteously stopped their conversations and joined in whenever they heard a cheer beginning. There was, so Gallagher said in the next issue of the Connacht Eagle, an unmistakable and most impressive popular enthusiasm for General John Regan.

Father McCormack, standing on a chair borrowed from Doyle's Hotel, opened the proceedings. He said that Ireland had always been famed for its hospitality to strangers and its courtesy to women. He hoped that it always would be. Looking round on the faces of the men gathered in front of him, he felt quite certain that it always would be. Mr. Billing, who was to address the meeting that day, was a stranger, a very distinguished stranger, one whose name was a household word wherever the deeds of General John Regan were remembered, one whose name would be still better known when his forthcoming life of the General appeared. He was proud and pleased to extend to Mr. Billing on behalf of the audience a hearty Caed Mille Failthe. He hoped that Mr. Billing would carry back with him a pleasant recollection of Irish hospitality when he returned to—

Here Father McCormack hesitated and looked round. Dr. O'Grady, who was standing behind him whispered the word "Bolivia." Father McCormack repeated the word "Bolivia" aloud and everybody cheered. Father McCormack moistened his lips and went on to say that Mr. Billing was not a woman, but Irish courtesy, though always extended to women, was not confined to women. In the name of the audience he promised Mr. Billing some Irish courtesy.

A further reference to Mr. Billing's literary work gave Father McCormack an opportunity of warning his audience against Sunday newspapers published in England, which, he said, reeked of the gutter and were horribly subversive of faith and morals. Ireland, he added, had newspapers of her own which no one need be ashamed or afraid to read. As an evidence of the confidence he felt in the elevating character of Irish newspapers he called upon Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher, the distinguished editor of the Connacht Eagle, to address the meeting. Then with the assistance of Dr. O'Grady, he stepped off the chair. Having reached the ground safely he sat down on the chair. He had a perfect right to do this because he was chairman of the meeting; but a slight delay followed. Another chair had to be brought from the hotel for Gallagher to stand on.

Gallagher's speech was an eloquent paraphrase of the leading article which Dr. O'Grady had written for him the previous week. Once or twice he broke away from his original and said some very good things about the land question and Home Rule. But he always got back to Emmet, O'Connell, or one of the other patriots mentioned by Dr. O'Grady. Now and then, in a very loud tone, he said the name of General John Regan. Whenever he did so the audience was greatly pleased. He ended by announcing the names of the gentlemen who were to form "The Statue Committee." Father McCormack came first on the list. Mr. Billing was second. Major Kent, Dr. O'Grady, Doyle and Gallagher himself made up the number. He said that it was unnecessary for him to say anything about the fitness of these gentlemen for the high and responsible position to which they were being elected by the unanimous voice of their fellow countrymen.

Gallagher descended from his perch, but he was not allowed to sit down. He wanted to, because sitting down is a far more dignified way of ending a speech than slouching into the background. It was Doyle who interfered with him.

"Get up out of that, Thady," he said. "Don't you know the chair's wanted for the American gentleman? How is he to make a speech if you don't give him something to stand on?"

Gallagher, who had not actually succeeded in sitting down, left his chair with a protest.

"It would suit you better to be getting another chair," he said.

"It would not," said Doyle. "Would you have all the chairs that's in it brought out to the street?"

Mr. Billing stood up and smiled pleasantly. Father McCormack's exhortation had its effect. More than forty people gathered to hear what the stranger had to say. This was courtesy. The hospitality, it was presumed, had already been shown by Doyle. Gallagher, who still had hopes of finding out something about General John Regan, and Dr. O'Grady, who was equally anxious to hear the speech, leaned forward eagerly. Father McCormack crossed his legs and settled himself as comfortably as possible in his chair.

Mr. Billing proved a disappointment as a speaker. The substance of what he said was quite admirable, but he only spoke for five minutes. Now an audience, even if it is not listening and does not want to listen, is apt to complain that it is treated with a want of respect if a speaker gives it no more than five minutes.

"I reckon," said Mr. Billing, "that what's required of me is not oratory but dollars."

This was true but nude. In Ireland we have a sure instinct in such matters, and we know that the nude is never decent. We like everything, especially Truth, to have clothes on.

"Five hundred dollars is the amount that I'm prepared to hand over to your treasurer. As I understand, gentlemen, your doctor has secured the services of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to unveil the statue. We don't figure much on fancy titles on our side, but I guess it's different here, and your doctor is a smart man. I may not see that Lord-Lieutenant, gentlemen, and I may not see the statue. I shall be researching in the principal libraries of the continent of Europe for documents bearing on the life of the great general. Whether I am here or not will depend on the date which that Lord-Lieutenant and your doctor fix up between them. But I'll be along for the occasion if I can."

The first sentence of Mr. Billing's speech was indecently nude. The remainder of it was offensively bald. There was once an elderly and cantankerous farm labourer who complained that he could not hear the curate when he preached. He was on the next occasion set in the forefront of the congregation and the curate spoke directly into his ear. The old man was unable to say that he did not hear, but he maintained an aggrieved attitude. "I heard him," he complained afterwards, "but what good was it to me? What I want is to have the Gospel druv well home to my soul." The feeling of most audiences is very much the same as his was. Unadorned statements of fact, or what is meant to be taken as fact, do not satisfy them. They like to have something, fact or fiction, driven thunderously home into their souls. The only one of Mr. Billing's hearers who was thoroughly well satisfied with his speech was Doyle. The statement that five hundred dollars were to be handed over to him was, in his judgment, of more value than many resonant periods.